AICC president Rahul Gandhi cleared the names of eight candidates to contest Lok Sabha polls from Telangana late on Friday night. The names of remaining nine candidates are likely to be announced on Saturday.

Candidates whose names were cleared include Ramesh Rathod from Adilabad, Balaram Naik from Mahabubabad, A Chandrashekhar from Peddapalli, Ponnam Prabhakar from Karimnagar, A Revanth Reddy from Malkajgiri, Madan Mohan from Zaheerabad, Konda Vishweshwar Reddy from Chevella, and Gali Anil Kumar from Medak. Though some of these candidates contested for the Telangana Assembly unsuccesfully, the Congress leadership is learnt to have chosen them considering that they contested from the same Lok Sabha constituencies during previous Parliament elections in 2014.